Page 92 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

was carried across and we mounted another train in which we continued
our journey.
Seventeen
Which way I fly is Hell.
Paradise Lost. Milton. 1608-1674.
t all this. ‘Did you not see the aeroplanes flying over the city? Did you not
iving in the Persian Gulf involved much travel when going on
L home leave, which I took every other summer. Both Marjorie and
I disliked flying, and we found the most enjoyable method of
travelling was by train. It was only in recent years that we abandoned the
land route to Europe, by Taurus Express to Istanbul, thence by Simplon
Express to Calais, in favour of B.O.A.C. direct to London. At one time
we travelled the route so often that we got to know most of the wagon-
lits attendants, which we found very useful. We had a Turkish friend in
Thomas Cook’s office in Istanbul who, when my son was a small boy,
used to carry him along the platform. Years later my son met him. By
then my son was 6 ft. 5 in. and weighed nearly fifteen stone, so carrying
days were passed.
The land route was sometimes adventurous. Once when travelling
out to Bahrain three unpleasant incidents occurred. On the plains of
Anatolia the train ran over a crowded bus at a level crossing. It was a
hideous accident. I never discovered how many people were killed. The
accident happened at night, the only light was from the train windows
« and there was no doctor on board the train—not that he would have been
much use in most of the cases. I and the other passengers did what we
could during the long wait before help arrived from a distant town.
Police removed the engine-driver and some of the train officials and
eventually we moved off with a new engine-driver.
Next morning we were high up in the Taurus mountains enjoying
the spectacular scenery when suddenly the train stopped, not at a station.
A bridge on the line ahead of us had subsided. After a long wait the
passengers were told to get out and walk across a temporary, insecure
structure spanning a gap in the bridge over a deep gorge. Our luggage
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On reaching Baghdad we left our luggage in the hotel, where we had
booked rooms, and went for a walk in the bazaar to stretch our legs. It
seemed strangely empty and many of the shops were shut. I noticed that
people looked at us with some curiosity so we soon returned to the hotel.
The manager, who knew us well, greeted us at the door in great excitc-
ment. ‘Why have you been out? Where have you been?’ he shouted. I
replied: ‘We went for a walk. Why are all the shops shut? What is going
on?’ ‘Do you not know,’ he asked, ‘that we have a coup d'dtat, a real
coup d'etat? Ja’far Pasha Al Askari, Minister of Defence, has been killed.
Now the army advances upon Baghdad.’ We knew, of course, nothing of
perceive the leaflets which they drop?’ continued the manager. We had
heard aircraft but thought it was nothing unusual and we had seen no
leaflets. However, we cut short our stay in Baghdad and were fortunate in
catching the night train which took us to Basra, where there was no
excitement.
In Basra we met one of our friends, a naval Captain in command of a
sloop, who had often stayed with us in Bahrain. He was sailing for
Bahrain in an hour or two and offered to take us there in his ship.
As we cruised slowly down the Shatt al Arab, between the lush date-
groves, where the palms were heavy with great bunches of dates, coloured
yellow, brown and red, the Captain came to where we were sitting on
deck and said: ‘Something very awkward has happened. The flagship is
lying off Abadan and the Commander-in-Chicf, East Indies Squadron, is
coming on board.’ Turning to Marjorie, he said, ‘You will have to dis­
appear.’ She retired, meekly, to her cabin and I stayed on deck, feeling
ratheF foolish and annoyed because I remembered that there was some
rule about ships not carrying women. The Commander-in-Chief was
Admiral Sir Alexander Ramsay, He came on board and after spending
some time with the Captain I was introduced to him. Almost the first
thing he said was, ‘I should like to meet your wife. I thought to
myself, ‘Now the fat is in the fire!* But he had a twinkle in his eye, and
when Marjorie came into the cabin rather nervously the Captain told us.
that he had got permission before we came on board to take us to Bahrain.
I was extremely relieved to know that the whole thing had been a joke,
and that we were not going to cause some frightful contretemps.
1 had several mildly alarming adventures flying in the Gulf. Once on
my way back from leave I was given a lift in an R.A.F.- flying-boat
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v*.